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When the time comes, it really won't matter what you or other people want. Companies will simply stop making physical media because the cost of doing so will be so much higher than digital distribution. It's just like VCRs stopped being offered in most places probably before the market for them had completely dried up. But companies tend to look ahead and go, "five years from now there is going to be a negligible demand for this product. Let's get out now."

Blood- wrote:

When the time comes, it really won't matter what you or other people want.

But what we are willing to spend will matter. As long as we will pay for them there will be businesses that are happy to take our money and give us a shiny disc in return.
And people will be willing to buy physical releases until everybody has cheap, unlimited, high-speed Internet access. Even then some businesses will have to be willing to store everything on servers that can be accessed by anybody at anytime.

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Companies will simply stop making physical media because the cost of doing so will be so much higher than digital distribution.

Does it really cost that much to author a disc and package it?
Maybe I will ask Answerman about that.

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It's just like VCRs stopped being offered in most places probably before the market for them had completely dried up.

But at that time DVD discs and players were just as accessible to customers as tapes and players were.
Digital delivery is nowhere near being as accessible as physical media.

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But companies tend to look ahead and go, "five years from now there is going to be a negligible demand for this product. Let's get out now."

And other companies will say "nobody else is filling this demand. If we do it we can have the market to ourselves."
That is why we have a few companies selling anime in North America. Anime is a small market but there is not much competition from the big studios, so the anime distributors can sell their products at prices that are significantly higher than other forms of entertainment.

Physical media might become a niche market, but it will be a market for a long time to come.
Unless there is a radical improvement in the Internet infrastructure.

Again, that's why I make no predictions about when the change-over will happen. The only thing I will say is it may happen more quickly than a lot of people expect, but yes, right now there are technological hurdles to be overcome before that day comes.

Lavnovice9 wrote:

ATastySub wrote:

Just like any other field, those that have the background, the experience, and the knowledge to prove and defend their points will always be more important than a random person that happens to "like" something (myself included).

Who's opinion on anime matters more than your own? I'm curious, because anime doesn't have a reviewing scene like movies do, or even video games. There's no Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes for anime (thank god) so who is this mysterious illuminati of anime experts who decides what is objectively good or bad?

Not that it really matters or anything. Sales are what's important and drive the industry, not what some dude on a blog or YouTube video says.

Thank you for completely missing the point. Aggregate sites are awful for discussion because they leave out the WHY that is so important. In fact the whole scoring system is pretty awful. Read what the critics have to say, not just the numbers. Also no, sales have little to do with what I'm talking about. Sales will always keep the industry alive and moving, but for the most part the more artistic, exploratory, and inventive stuff will most certainly be outsold by low-brow/turn your brain off entertainment.

As for your sarcastic comment on whose opinion matters. For my own entertainment yes, my own and reviewers whose opinions I've found match my tastes. However, I wasn't talking about opinion on entertainment. I was talking about opinion on art. Check out the books by Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy. They're a good introduction into recognizing that anime and manga can and has been studied. Past that, if you have access to scholarly articles via jstor or something similar, you can find and read in depth critiques. Those are the opinions to trust on the medium as a WHOLE. Not just as entertainment.

Honestly, I know the likelihood of you doing any of that is close to nil, and that's okay. Anime is meant to be entertaining, and if that's all you want out of it that's great! Enjoy yourself! But don't get upset that others enjoy looking deeper into it and that, when it comes past simple entertainment, they'll have more to say.

Blood- wrote:

When the time comes, it really won't matter what you or other people want. Companies will simply stop making physical media because the cost of doing so will be so much higher than digital distribution. It's just like VCRs stopped being offered in most places probably before the market for them had completely dried up. But companies tend to look ahead and go, "five years from now there is going to be a negligible demand for this product. Let's get out now."

Touma makes a lot of good points.

As long as there are people who want physical media, there will be a company or companies that will supply that demand.

There are many movies and TV shows that are out of print, and unavailable. That is why we buy physical media.

Tell me where you can legally watch the Outlanders OVA or the Iczer One OVA. No where legally.

Physical media is not going bye bye anytime soon, especially when the internet cannot provide the shows you want and when the new shows you like become old shows, they too will disappear off the internet.

But nor are we saying everything is going to remain static. New physical media may replace the Blu-Ray format, or we may even get the best of both worlds, where you can easily buy anime (via download) and print or manufacture your own physical media of that anime legally. You might even get to manufacture you own art boxes off of a legally obtained and authorized schematic.

TarsTarkas wrote:

As long as there are people who want physical media, there will be a company or companies that will supply that demand.

No, it's not going to work that way. If Funi, Sentai and other distribs at some point decide it makes more sense to be digital distribution only, then that's that. Even if a company exists that is still willing to provide physical media, they won't have licenses for those shows so they are irrelevant. Again, I'm not saying this is going to happen tomorrow. But anyone who can't see that at a certain point products that can be provided digitally will only be provided digitally is blind. Yes, technological hurdles have to be overcome. But we already have one generation that is super comfortable with digital media and does not hold physical media in the same regard as those of us from older generations and there is another generation coming up (those born in 2000 and later) who are even more digitally entrenched. The eventual disappearance of physical media for intellectual property is inevitable. The only remaining question is when the tipping point will happen.

@Blood-

Sufficient unto the day, the evil thereof. Let it go.

Manga Gamer has a habit of selling physical copies of their more successful games; something like that isn't entirely out of the question here, especially if you add collector's edition goodies.

Blood- wrote:

If Funi, Sentai and other distribs at some point decide it makes more sense to be digital distribution only, then that's that.

But that will not make sense until selling physical releases is no longer profitable.
Physical releases will be sold until they are no longer profitable.
That will happen when digital distribution can satisfy our demands without the need for physical releases.

@ Touma - I think we pretty much agree. You don't seem to be suggesting that the production of physical media is going to go on for all time and I haven't predicted a date by which the digital change-over will be complete. Perhaps the only difference - and I'm not even sure about this since neither one of us has predicted a specific time period - is that I might be assuming it will happen faster than you are assuming.

@Blood-
Keep in mind that with all the collectors here, the loss of a hard copy distribution system would be a major disaster. That is why you are getting blow back from your prediction. You are probably right, but the lack of a time frame makes it like a prediction of an unspecified disaster.

I think you are probably underestimating the infrastructure problem. The local governments in our valley are talking about combining to invest in a high speed internet back bone. This is because no private company has shown any interest. Verizon has stated that they have no plans to provide FIOS here, ever. The local officials fear, probably with good cause, that without good internet service we will turn into something like one of those abandoned Japanese towns. Mind you, this is a compact area of 2 to 3 hundred thousand people. There are many areas in the country a lot smaller with even less service then we have.

The other problem that needs to be solved is the content providers. So far they have only embraced streaming and not all of them are onboard with that. The significance is that streaming doesn't provide a copy you can keep. Ever since media went digital, the IP companies have been adamantly against any form of transmission that can be easily copied. They basically killed Sony's Digital Audio Tape as it made perfect copies. Almost all of the down load to own sites have people crying about copy protection of some sort. Until they find a form of copy protection that works, digital distribution will be limited to streaming. The drawback is that this requires that everything be kept available or people will want hard copies to buy.

And yes, I'm aware that people can use software to keep a streamed show just as they can pirate it in other ways. However, pirating requires a certain level of technical skill and a specific mindset. This acts as a limiting factor. If this becomes universal with a new generation it may provoke the problems the IP companies fear but have not yet seen. Chicken Little only has to be right once.

For what it is worth, I think anime will be one of the last forms of media that is lost to hard copy. It is sufficiently niche that it will be low on the list of content to be provided by the universal servers needed to make everything available all the time.

Blood- wrote:

@ Touma -Perhaps the only difference - and I'm not even sure about this since neither one of us has predicted a specific time period - is that I might be assuming it will happen faster than you are assuming.

I think that you are right about that.
I believe that it is far enough in the future that there is no reason to be concerned about it now.
You seem to think that it is more imminent.

I also get the impression, and I could be reading you wrong, that you are looking forward to it more than I am.

Blood- you have a good point. I personally prefer streaming media for anime because I feel that as long as I'm getting the experience of watching a show, I don't need to physically own it. Manga is another matter. I struggle to read manga on a computer screen and find it much easier to read as a book. But fewer and fewer manga are actually being physically published in English, and as companies use digital distribution to fill the gap (say, to make an out-of-print title available without actually having to reprint it) more titles are available legally only via the format I find the hardest to read. So I certainly sympathize with those of you that prefer all your media in a physically ownable format and dread the day when those formats are unavailable.

Some very good points being made here. With respect to my own personal opinion of the coming digital take-over: I'm torn. I'm an Old, so I grew up on physical media. I like holding a book in my hands. I like nice artboxes that can be displayed.

However, digital distribution (and by that I mean some method were you get "permanent" access to a specific title that you can play on your devices) has some pretty big advantages:

1) no shipping costs and no waiting for title to come by delivery;

2) allows distribs to reduce costs therefore title can be offered more cheaply;

3) no more physical glitches (scratched discs, etc). If there is any problem with the file, it can be easily replaced

4) reduces OOPness. In the age of physical media, things go OOP because distribs reach a point where they are unwilling to make any additional physical copies. In the digital-only world, the only time a title would go OOP is if a company allows its license to lapse.

5) Frees a ton of space in your habitation (for people with big collections and small living spaces, like myself, that's huge).

BOW BEFORE YOUR NEW DIGITAL OVERLORDS, LUDDITES!!! Wink

@Blood-
You poor futuristic dreamer, it won't be Luddites that kills this dream, though they probably will help, it will be the bean counters.

I basically agree with the advantages you mention, but I see problems that will have to be worked out and may abort the entire thing.

First lets discuss "permanent". If you have to be able to re-download a show, nothing is more permanent than the company that provides it. If you were reliant on additional downloads of Bandai titles, where would you be now? I've got a lot of stuff from non longer existent companies, how about you?

Also nothing is permanent if a new format that requires new equipment comes along. I've gotten rid of tons of old records, VHS tapes and the like simply because I didn't want to keep and maintain the equipment necessary to play them. I kept an excellent turntable for years because I thought I would copy my favorite records onto tape. Then I realized that I had used neither record player or tape player in a long time and that it was unlikely either would work.

I've noticed that some non anime movies these days come with a "free digital download". I've never used one but I doubt they allow you download the show more than once or to multiple devices. Does anyone have experience with these? Can you even do a backup? I really doubt there will ever be a time when the major studios or other content providers allow you to download something that can be copied indefinitely. You may see this as a backup or a transfer from a laptop to a pad but they see it as free copies to other potential buyers. If the studios had their way, you would have to pay every time you watched a show.

You mentioned OOP. While digital copies can be maintained on company servers indefinitely, company financial types will look at the servers and see that a lot of space is taken by shows that haven't been downloaded in significant numbers for several years. Out they will go, "gotta' save money you know". Considering that most shows have a period of 20 to 30 years between "must see" and "nostalgia" this will likely present a problem.

As for the Luddites, they are not against new technology, nowadays, they hate complex technology. In order to win the general public it will have to be as easy as operating a cable box. Currently streaming is all over the place. I will consider it as having come of age when I can go to one site and pay one bill and stream all the anime that is available. Currently it is a mess that only appeals to enthusiasts.

As I see your idea, it would be really nice if we could download a copy of a show to the equivalent of a thumb drive and play it on any video machine we have and be able to replace this if we show proof of purchase. It would be even better if all of this could be handled by a few (or even one) sites. Select a show from a menu and click. Account billed automatically. Nice but it won't happen.

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